


The Ren Amamiya Mystery Club

by SOAB01



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Bullying, Coming of Age, Cousins, Daddy Issues, Discrimination, Expanded Universe, F/M, Family Drama, Family Dynamics, Female Character of Color, Friendship/Love, Gay Character, Gay Male Character, Gen, High School, High School Crush, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, Male Protagonist, Mommy Issues, Mystery, Mystery Stories, No Metaverse (Persona 5), Orginial Characters, POV Original Character, Ren's home town, School club, Slice of Life, Teen Romance, expanded universe (persona 5), orginial cast of characters, romantic crush, school club antics, teen detectives
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-07 06:14:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14074689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SOAB01/pseuds/SOAB01
Summary: Isamu Ayame, the new (meek-ish) president of the Book Club, can’t seem to catch a break in his life, and the beginning of his second year at Poaro High School is a recent prime evidence of this. With the club’s most prominent member, Ren Amamiyu, under probation, expelled from their school and moved to parts unknown without a word, the clubs reputation has hit an all time low, prompting every other member of the club to leave it without even telling Isamu to his face.With the knowledge that the club will undoubtedly be disbanded by the school and no sight or sound of the a person he thought of as his closest and only friend, the timid Isamu feels like he’s lost everything that made life there worthwhile.However, a little someone isn’t going to just let him crawl into a hole and hide from the world, and that someone is his unruly cousin Akio Otsuji, who due trouble with his old school has comes to live with Isamu and his father after spending the last ten years living in Tokyo. And despite having not seen each other in person in those years, Akio seems to be determined to get his cousin out of his comfort zone.





	1. Fools Rush in...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 31/03/2018 - The principal using the honorifics "Kun" was too informal when using it about a student. And Akio used to be a second year, but I changed it so he was just started High School by the start of his story.

It had only been a week since he had arrived in Agasa and Akio Otsuji was surprised it had taken him this long to get trouble. For most students of any school, they’d be surprised to get in trouble in the first week of high school, not Akio however, he could remember gotten in trouble at the beginning of his first year at his old middle school back in Tokyo, and almost every day after that.

It was the reason he had been sent to live with his uncle and cousin in the first place.

He could still remember that talk his mum had with him, or massive rant as he preferred to think of it, over dinner the night before he was going to Agasa. She had kept going on and on about how his Cousin Isamu was (apparently) a very well behaved boy of his age, who had a good attendance record, did well in school and was part of a club, so maybe a year or two living with them would sort himself out and find some direction in life, and _blah, blah, blah_.

As she had gone on and on, he had to put his headphones on to drown her out. This of course caused her to start ranting more and more. Not that he could hear her. He didn’t want to hear her though, he frankly didn’t want to listen to people most of the time, since they either gossiped about him or told him what he should do with himself.

Undoubtedly his mum would be doing some more ranting later over the phone. Isamu’s dad would be, if not already called by the school regarding the little incident that happened last than twenty minutes ago in the school’s front court yard, and he would leave her a message which she would promptly respond to when she and his dad got home from their office.

Akio was _certainly_ looking forward to another one of those talks.

While he was thinking over all this, he looked over at his Cousin, who the entire time had been looking downwards at his shoes. He hadn’t uttered a single word since both of them had been sent to sit and wait outside the principal’s office. The taller and mousy haired second year, whose personality was just as mousy, was obviously in a state of quiet shock. Despite having not seen him in ten years, Akio had over the last week deduced that Isamu was the sort who seemed willing to fade in the back ground for some reason.

This made it all the more surprising to Akio, that Isamu would so loudly stand up to that pig headed captain of the basketball team, if still rather weakly, flip him to the ground, and then instigate an all out fight with the rest of the basketball team.

They wouldn’t be too harsh on Isamu, Akio thought; after all it was defiantly Isamu’s first fight. If anything they’d be harsher on him considering as soon the captain went down another member of the basketball team charged straight for Isamu, which was when Akio jumped on said basketball player while hitting him over the head with his backpack and then tried to fight four other members of the team, despite being so damn shorter than all of them.

He smirked to himself, thinking of the surprised looks on those idiots faces when he jumped on their teammates back and started whaling on him. Bet they never thought that would have happened, much like how Isamu had challenged them.

‘Isamu, try to relax. At worst I’ll be the one to get detention,’ Akio said leaning towards his Cousin, trying breaking the tense air between them, ‘not like anyone one died.’

This didn’t seem to make much of impression on his Cousin, who still continued to look down at his own shoes. Akio sighed and settled in his chair again.

A minute or two later, they heard the sound of footsteps approaching them. Akio saw from the corner of his eye, Isamu quickly look towards the direction of where the footsteps were coming from, trying and failing, to not look so nervous, and then stood up sharply when the principal and the school’s councelor came round the corner. As the principal came towards them he saw she had a blank expression on her face, not revealing her true emotions, though Akio believed they were defiantly not happy ones in that moment, while the school councelor walked behind her looking his usually exhausted self.

‘Hello, Ayama-San,’ she greeted Isamu, who before he even had the opportunity to speak, turned towards his cousin, ‘hello, Otsuji-San.’

At being greeted, without his body moving at all, his eyes looked toward her, ‘Hello Principal Yonezawa. How’s been your lunch?’ at this question, Akio could tell his cousin just wanted to die of shock at how casual he was being about the whole thing.

‘It was going alright actually. Though not as interesting as yours I hear,’ she responded, continuing to show not a flick of emotion, except for an ever so slight glare. Then as she stepped over to her office door and gently opened it, she said, ‘why don’t we all go in my office and have a talk about it.’

Akio then stood up from his suit with his hands in his blazer pockets, and quietly followed his cousin into the room. As they entered he looked towards his Cousin and noticed his hands, it seemed he was prying. Akio rolled his eyes and thought. _‘He seriously needs to calm it. It’s not like we’re about to battle against a god!!”_


	2. An Absent Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isamu thinks about the end of his first year in high school and what the next holds for him.

**_Seven Days Earlier..._ **

**4/9 th (Saturday)**

**Afternoon**

**The Ayama Residence**

 

Isamu Ayama had not been out of his bedroom much lately. The only times he had left the confides of his room recently, were when he eat with his father and sister downstairs, helped them out at the shop, or when he needed to go to the bathroom, to either brush his teeth, wash himself, or relieve himself. The last two of which he naturally was glad they were never there for.

His dad hadn’t noticed this recent behaviour. After all, what teenager doesn’t spend enormous amounts of time in their room? Though while some teenagers are playing on their games console’s, or are texting on their mobiles, Isamu is one of those teenaged who loved to read, excessively. His father had certainly walked into his room enough times, after calling him repeatedly to let him know dinner was ready, to find Isamu’s nose firmly in a book, so completely engrossed in the story written within its pages he blocked out the world. At one point his father had even joking suggested they ban any books in the house and burn all books, which Isamu, though he knew he was joking didn’t really find it particularly funny.

Though he hadn’t been doing much that lately, this would be surprising knowledge to people, considering his new position in his school's Book Club. Not that he felt like reading really. Especially after everything that happened.

Isamu could still well remember that frightful day back two months ago. It had been a rather regular Monday morning it seemed. He had woken up to find that he had forgotten to set his alarm clock (again) the night before, so after have a quick panic over it, he quickly got changed into his uniform and headed out to school as quickly as he could. After almost running to school, he was so thankful to find he had arrived just shy of his homeroom even starting, he didn’t even realise the usual occupied seat next to him was empty, as he double checked his school bag in case he forgot something.

Then a minute or so later, the classroom door was opened by his stern looking homeroom teacher, Mrs Kuroda, holding her usual folder and paper work. At this point, everything started not feeling so regular.

Isamu had at seeing his homeroom teacher looked over to the empty seat next to him, realising upon looking at it that Ren Amamiyu was not there. Ren had never been late before, even back in middle school when Isamu had first known of him, Amamiyu had always be one of the first of his peers to arrive in class. Certainly before him that was for sure.

 _‘Alright class, attention please. I have an announcement,’_ Mrs Kuroda ordered as she held a piece of paper in her left hand, which got the attention of a few in the class, including Isamu, even though he was paying part of his attention to the empty seat, _‘I have to sadly inform you that due to an incident outside of school, your classmate Ren Amamiyu will be absent from school until further notice.'_

The room was an instant stir of muttering, gasps and staring looks as she declared this.

 _‘What! Amamiyu-Kun was in an incident!’_ A flustered female student had cried, _'how terrible.'_

 _‘Is this a prank or something? What did he do, give a lost burglar directions or something,’_ one sarcastic male student had muttered.

 _‘It can’t be true. I’ve s-seen him study in the library all the time, so he’s way too smart to get himself in trouble,’_ protested a sheepish female student.

 _‘Do have any idea what the hell is going on, Ayama?’_ whispered fellow book club member Fumie Hashira, as she discreetly leaned towards Isamu.

 _'I have about as much ideas as you do, Hashira-San,’_ he whispered back.

After a few more seconds of muttering around the class about this sudden announcement, Mrs Kuroda ordered everyone to quieten down and continued homeroom by taking attendance of the class.

In the meantime, Isamu quietly thought to himself about what could have possibly happened to Ren? What was this "incident" that was making him absence from school? It had only been a few days since he had last seen and talked to him, he seemed his usual self, didn't seem to be stressing about something or bolting up emotions because he didn't want to bother others with them. So whatever this incident was had been possibly something out of his control, something that he had just come upon him. Isamu hoped. Throughout the rest of that day he only heard other student give baseless gossip about circumstances of Ren's absence, even when lessons had finished for the day and the book club met up, no one had any concrete answers.

 _'Come on, the answer is right in front of us,'_  said fellow first year Natsume Tezuka, as if he was trying to state the obvious to the rest of the book club,  _'he's been arrested, that's what's happened.'_

 _'What! That's ridiculous!'_ Isamu had fumed. _'I seriously doubt it's something like that!'_

_'Don't be an ostrich, Ayama. Adults always say "incident" when it involves the police.'_

_'He hasn't done anything, it's impossible'_ Isamu responded back to Natsume, _'I think something bad has happened to him, not the reverse. That's what I believe!'_

 _'That's right,'_ second year Ai Chizuko backed Isamu up, _'think about it Tezuka-San, Amamiyu-Kun is too nicer guy to have done something criminal! Right, Nana!?'_

Ai's twin sister, Nanami, looked to Ai at the mention of her sister's affectionate pet name for her. She didn't seem like she had been paying attention, probably daydreaming again, but still agreed with her twin, if rather meekly,  _'I suppose so.'_

 _'How do you even know he hasn't done anything? Y_ _ou may be friends with him, but it's not like you two are joined at the hip,'_ then smirking slightly, he added, _'though I imagine you'd liked that.'_

Isamu had felt rather flustered by this remark, but managed to respond, _'I don't know, ok. I just have to believe.'_

 _'Come off it, Tezuka-San,'_ Fumie had said from her seat next to Isamu, _'your theories are just as baseless.'_

Natsume then had snorted. _'Seriously! Are you just as blind as him?'_

_'No, but we can't just act like your theory is the only right one,' she had responded, 'Like what if the basket ball team put Amamiyu in the hospital?'_

_'Excuse me!'_ Natsume responded defensively, _' you know damn well my brother is in the team, and he's no thug!'_

_'Well, from what I've heard, most of them are getting way too big headed. And rough.'_

_'I've heard that too.'_ Ai sniggered under her right hand.

 _'Oh, you do not want to take her side! Unless you want me to tell everyone about that disastrous date with Koyama.'_ Natsume threated Ai.

Ai swiftly stood up from her chair, _'Don't you even think about, you as-'_

At that moment a sharp cough had been made from the now open doorway of the classroom they always used for their meetings. Standing there was two third years, the first club's vice-president Suzu Miyazaki, and the second was the club's president Budou Wamu, both of whom surveyed the room harshly, obviously having heard the discussion that had slowly started heating.

 _'Well, looks like you all been having an interesting conversation,'_ Suzu said wryly, _'I'd loved hear what it was about.'_

 _'Seems SOMEBODY thinks my brother and the team go about beating up classmates for no reason,'_ Natsume responded icily, eyes darting towards Fumie.

_'Hey, I was only repeating what-'_

_'Now, now everyone,'_ interrupted the club's dedicated president _, '"A detective needs facts", so listening to word of mouth isn't going to help in the slightest.'_

 _'But all we have is "word of mouth"!'_  Isamu pointed out.

 _'Ayama-San, I get why you and everyone are worried,'_ everyone in the room nodded in agreement, apart from Natsume and Nanami _, 'but since nothing else has been said on the matter there's nothing else that can be done, besides I'm absolutely sure whatever's happened isn't too bad.'_ He had said reassuringly. _'Now why don't we talk about our next book for this month. Our dear vice-president picked this one for us and I have to agree with Miyazaki-San that it's a good choice for this month. Also, has anyone seen Tomiyasu-San?'_

Though it turned out Budou was wrong, and it had indeed turned out bad. Very bad indeed.

It was three weeks later in homeroom one again, when Mrs Kuroda announced further news on Ren. Isamu and everyone else hadn't heard anything from, with no response from Ren's mobile or email, so Isamu felt jubilant he was about actual hear something. Those hopeful feelings however were shattered when she gave the news that Ren had been officially expelled from school, due to fact that all those weeks ago he had been arrested on the charge of assault, and had now been slapped with a probation order. Of course gossip had been building quietly since then, with a few mentions of people wondering what had happened to Ren and the numerous theories that arouse from it. While they all talked about the main current gossip that was mulling about, but with this news, it blew all other gossip out of the water.

 _'They do say it's the quiet types you gonna watch out for,'_   Isamu had heard someone in the back of homeroom comment.

Naturally, more comment like this, and even more nastier, were made after that day. He honestly didn't want to think about it.

The news of Ren's arrest, probation and removable from the school study body, shuck the book club to it's core. Natsume was rather smug with himself for being right of course, Nanami seemed generally surprised but said nothing else, and Ai and Fumie were the most talkative on the subject, surprisingly giving ideas of what the circumstances were of this "assault charge". Budou gave speech to the group when he started the next club meeting on how he felt he and Suzo wished that despite studying for university entrance exams they could have given Ren more guidance as his senpai, before he told Isamu that despite the events surrounding Ren, he hoped Isamu could maintain the book club in the new school year.

He wished Budou hadn't brought that up. He didn't even know why he had been picked for the position of the Book Club's president in the first place, when they people like Nanami and Ren were much better for the position. His sister may have told him it was just a club, but it still felt like a heavy burden now. For crying out loud he hadn't even thought about what book they would be reading next meeting, even though he had gotten several ideas over the past week. He'd just been staying in his room, potting about the house, hadn't even chatted with anyone from the club since the school year ended, not that they messaged him anyway.

Where was Ren now, he thought. He probably could have given him some excellent advice, or been comforting, he always had been in the past. Now of course he couldn't do any of that since discovering that Ren's email and mobile number had been deactivated.

Yet there were times he'd still wanted to try.

**...**

Just as we pondering this, sound of vehicle came to a stop in front of his home, and a voice came from outside brought him back from his daydreaming.

'Isamu, you up and about?!' cried out a female voice.

'Aoi, please could you not shout so loudly,' spoke an older male voice, 'just go and knock on the door!'

'Dad! You said you didn't want to be late picking up Akio,' argued the first voice.

'I did, but I don't like you yelling though the street.' the older male responded.

Isamu walked to his bedroom window, which overlooked the street in front of his house, and opened it to see a van waiting in front he recognised all to well as belong to his families florist business. The van was one of many that had belong to his families business over year, painted in a strong dark green colour, with words in a bright yellow saying _"Himi's Family Florist"_ which circed around the top of a happy, smiling flower of the same bright yellow, which was painted on both sides of the van. Poking her head out from the passage side was the oldest of his sisters, Aoi, her dark brunette hair hidden mostly by the black baseball cap she often wear.

'Aoi, what are you and dad doing?' he inquired, rather confused as he peaked his head out the window.

'Don't you remember,' he heard her sign, 'our cousin Akio is coming.'

He remained confused for a second, before then remembering what she was referring to.

'Wait, that's today!' he blurted out.

'Of course it's today!' She yelled, while unbeknownst to Isamu rolled her eyes. 'Now get down here, he's suppose to arriving soon and Aunt Riu doesn't want him just waiting for us.'

As Isamu grabbed his black jacket and put it on while heading for the stairs, he chastised himself for forgetting something as big as his cousin moving from Tokyo and coming to live with them. It been around actually a month ago when he it actually thought about it. When his dad announced over breakfast that their younger cousin, who was about fifteen years old if he remembered correctly, was coming to live with them and attend as a first year at Isamu's high school, was rather surprise for them. Aoi immediately asked why the Cousin was coming to live with them after not even seeing their Aunt Riu and her family for ten something years, which Isamu thought was a good question, their dad was rather hesitate to say actually why.

Though Aoi later said to him out of earshot of their dad, that Akio was probably a delinquent in training. Which naturally got him pondering on what their cousin was like and looked like for most of the day, which was a nice distraction from current events.

Once out the house and into the front seat of the van, next to Aoi on the passenger side, they were reading to go.

'Hey son, you've been keeping yourself busy today?' his dad asked.

'Oh, just studying a bit to prepare for Monday.' Isamu lied, partly, as he got comfort in his seat.

'Good to hear, Isamu,' his dad said, smiling a little, 'I just hope you keep it up. Your grandmother was very impressed with how you did your first year,' his smile fayed a little.

'Yeah, just make sure not to spend so much time in your room study,' Aoi told him with a knowingly look, as their dad started the car.

When it came to his recent behaviour, he knew his sister had noticed. She been the first person outside of school he told about the news of Ren probation and expulsion from school. She had gladly listened to him, as he talked how horrible it was and how sure he was that it wasn't true, and she believed Isamu was right. She had met Ren in person more than once and talked to him well enough to know Isamu's judgment was not bias. He had told their dad of course but even though he supported Isamu's belief as well, he had to admit something must of have happened for Ren to get that probation, something he shouldn't have meddled in. She knew how much he cared for Ren and how badly it had affected him, but she knew he couldn't stay in his room for ever. Unlike other people.

'I'll try to,' he muttered under his breath, which went only heard by his sister, who was disappointed in his response.

Then with the sound of car steadily accelerating away from their house, they were off to the train station. As they began the journey, Isamu started to wonder just what sort of person Akio was going to be? Was he really a delinquent, if so he hoped he didn't continue his "training", after all, wasn't there some gang calling themselves the "twin tails" hanging around. Though he could turn out to be just a regular city boy, what ever that was. If so, Isamu thought how's Akio would fare in a town far north of Tokyo?

Only time could tell. He hoped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to let you know (as in anyone whose actually reading XP) that viewpoints will switch every chapter, with the last being Akio viewpoint, and this one being Isamu, and the next one being Akio. You get the idea. Though I may even switch it up and have other character viewpoints.
> 
> So we'll be having Akio again. 
> 
> Also, Sorry for the title of this chapter, As I wrote this chapter I couldn't come up with a good one, and that was the only thing that popped to mind, for some reason.
> 
> May/4th/2018 - Added and edited a bit. That's probably going to happen a lot

**Author's Note:**

> Firstly I would just like to say sorry if I offend anyone with how I write Japanese life and high school there, I'm going off what I found online and other media. For ages I've been wanting to actually write something, anything really, and I've had this fanfic idea in my head for ages, and I hope you enjoy it.


End file.
